MAYvel 2021 (Marvel Legends); Into the Spiderverse Miles Morales: Close, but no cigar.

 While the Main site will soon be starting MAYvel with a collection from Disney+, I thought I might use this as a chance to go through some of the other Marvel Legends I picked up. Because nothing says "riding the hype train" quite like reviewing toys from a few waves back from a movie that came out in 2018, does it? I mean, it is MAYvel after all; catch up is the name of the game here.

 
As with the Gwen Stacey, this represents Miles from the movie Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. However, while Gwen's design for the movie was mostly the same as it is in the comics, Miles' takes many more liberties. You can't pass this off as a comic Miles, thanks to the shorts, shoes, hoodie and jacket. The design itself is a bit of a mixed bag because while it looks good in the movie, it doesn't translate well to plastic. Unlike Gwen, though, one of the best things about the toy is the head sculpt for a maskless Miles. It's an excellent translation of the animation model, though there are other parts of the toy that I don't think translate as well. The shins look a bit too thin and skinny on the toy, which is heavily contrasted by loose-fitting shorts. Another minor nitpick of mine is the fixed neck. Due to the way it's sculpted, it kind of looks like he has a hunched back thanks to the way the jackets sit on his torso, but if you take the jackets off, other than the awkwardly coloured arms, it looks too long. The neck reminds me of Hungry Hungry Hippo when the hippo heads are extended to reach the marbles. 

 
Sculpting on the figure (prior nitpicks excluded) is well done. I love the sculpting details on the spider suit, and the work done on the sleeves to give the jacket a fabric texture look to them is impressive. I'm also quite impressed with the paint. The eyes on the mask stand out nicely. It is a shame, though, that the spider logo is lost amongst the red hoodie. Articulation is solid; he is far more agile than the Gwens were thanks to a resounding ab crunch, though the hoodie can get in the way at times of movement, mainly if you want to curve his back. The lack of a double elbow joint is annoying but not the end of the world.

 
The big takeaway for me from this figure, comparisons to G.I Joe articulation excluded, is that this makes me think, "Wow... I'd rather have a comic version of Miles." This toy isn't bad, far from it, it does the job it set out to do pretty well, but when I think of what Miles Morales looks like, this isn't it. I like his design in the movie, Into the Spiderverse is up there as one of my favourite Superhero movies. But just because I associate the character's personality with the movie form doesn't me I associate the design. The black and red spider suit looks cool, and the appeal of it is lost due to all the extra clothes this toy is wearing. Because of that, though, this feels like an "it's close, but I can do better." It's not bad, not quite what I'm after. I hope you stick around because while Sundays this month will all revolve around Marvel Legends, the main site will be mainly focusing on Disney+ streaming for MAYvel 2021, starting with The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. If this marathon of content goes well, great! If not, I can always default back to Lego if I need MAYvel content for the Toybox.

Transformers Earthrise Voyager Class Grapple and Kingdom Voyager Class Inferno: When is a good toy mediocre?

Another two for one this week. In another case of "I was waiting until at least the obvious repaint was coming", something that likely took longer due to the virus last year. Well, over a year since we first got the mould, it's time to look at Earthrise Grapple and Kingdom Inferno!

 

I'll start by going over the elephant in the room when it comes to the first release of the mould. People's common quality control issue was the pegs that connected Grapple's backpack to his feet in Crane Truck mode. This problem was something addressed in Inferno, where they made the pegs shorter. Still, the fix many people used, myself included, was to shave a bit of plastic off of the pegs before trying to turn Grapple into his vehicle mode to cut down on the friction connecting the pieces. If you're wondering which version of Grapple you have (assuming they've done a silent reissue that fixes the problem), gently try to push one of the pegs into the ports on the feet. If it feels like you're putting too much force into it, take it out before you go further, take a knife, and shave some plastic off of the sides of the pegs before trying again.

Starting in the vehicle modes, and right off the bat, we have their worst modes. On their own, they look fine, with a lot of lovely detailing. Though the ladder and crane arms could be longer on both figures, the biggest issue both have is the size. These two are meant to scale well with other figures in Robot mode, but due to the nature of their vehicle modes, to achieve that task, the vehicles look tiny compared to any other Generations vehicle. Scale isn't usually an issue for me; as long as vehicles and robots look good when together, I'm willing to look past the size issues. When there are some alternate modes like motorbikes, animals, dinosaurs, realistic firearms, and other similarly troublesome modes, it's hard for me to get worked up about things not scaling right. However, these two bother me. They never look good in vehicle mode when next to anyone other than each other. They're just too small!

I get why they needed to be small, and the ends justify the means when we get to robot mode. It's just an unfortunate side effect of the alternate modes. The retooling done to separate the two is minor, though effective. With Grapple getting a crane arm with an optional claw end, Inferno has something that loosely resembles a fire ladder, a nozzle on the end of it, and some fire hoses that peg onto what will be his robot mode shins. Grapple's claw has the best use of gimmick compatibility, with a clip in the middle of it that can connect to the road pieces used for your Micromaster bases. With it connecting via a 5mm port, you can plug anything onto the end of the crane so long as it has a 5mm plug. It's little things like that which add a lot of enjoyment to a figure, and it's a shame that they didn't find a way to replicate it for Inferno's fire ladder. 

 

As I said, the reason for the small trucks is for better-proportioned robot modes. While the transformation isn't anything exciting (as is typical for Inferno/Grapple toys, everything tucks in behind the chest as you turn robots into logs with wheels), the robot modes do look great when you get to them. These are some of the best-proportioned Transformers I own, and because of that, people have been able to do a lot of exciting and hilarious things with them. However, for some reason, I don't get much enjoyment when messing around with them. They just come off as rather dull to me, though I'm not quite sure why because there's nothing objectively wrong about their robot modes. That's something I noticed a lot in Earthrise. While there were several toys in it that were objectively good for what they were doing, something didn't quite click with me about them. They don't feel like they had a presence to them other than being good representations of the characters like there's no life in them. I know that probably sounds weird to people that don't collect toys. It probably sounds strange to people who do. But to compare it to the last review a few weeks ago of Cobra Commander, that figure has no face and is only expressive through hands, yet it feels more lively than these two. Even their wave mates, Earthrise Starscream and Kingdom Megatron (for Grapple and Inferno, respectively), feel more alive than these two do, and one of them is a glorified upscale of a toy from 2006!

Tiny truck mode aside, these two are good toys objectively. They're just underwhelming for me. Maybe it's my lack of general interest in the characters. Perhaps it's the fact that they always transform the same way. Whatever the reason is, they just come off as a bit lacklustre to me. Both are readily available in stores if you're after them, Grapple more so than Inferno, thanks to how much leftover stock of Grapple there is lying around! If you get more out of them, then great! Feel free to tell me what I'm missing because even I'm not sure what exactly my issue is with these two.

Opinion Piece: Hasbro Pulse Fan Fest 2021

Because the April Schedule is already out of whack anyway.

 

With the continued struggle of running events, Hasbro has decided to stream product reveals for six toy brands. Four licensed brands, two in house brands so that people who have access to Hasbro Pulse (without needing to resort to PO Boxes) can see what's coming up and what may join their collections. Instead of a regular review, I thought it would be interesting to go through the four and a half hours of live-stream, taking a break to finish building a new Lego Set, which will be getting a review soon, and see what new products are on the way. Here are my thoughts on the first Hasbro Pulse Fan Fest. 

 

 

 

To quickly get one thing out of the way. The six IP's that are focused on in this presentation. Transformers, G.I Joe, Star Wars, Marvel, Power Rangers and Fortnite. I actively collect two of these brands. I don't delve hard into merchandise for two of the brands here, choosing to focus more on the media they output, and the remaining two I don't care about in general. If you're coming here looking for my deep thoughts on the Power Rangers and Fortnite stuff, you're going to be disappointed as I didn't grow up watching Power Rangers, and I don't play Fortnite. 

I'll be going at this in order of reveals, but as an AV technician, I do have to call attention to awkward and frustrating aspects of the presentation, especially early on. Awkward camera transitions, the presenter's focus on the wrong camera, showing bad set direction early on, along with the continued use of "talk from the office via webcam", something that is a case by case technical issue depending on where the person lives and what they've done. There was stuttering, one of the people presenting in the Power Rangers muted themselves and didn't turn it back on, just minor issues like that which make the overall presentation look and feel kind of cheap. I was also not a big fan of the pointless padding like the Trivia, small Q&A sections, and talking to some fans moments that killed the presentation's pacing. Those shouldn't have been in the main show. Also, while I won't be going into details, I will still talk about all six IP's so going in order, relatively blind, so if it sounds disjointed, that's because it likely is. With that said:

 

 

Fortnite: The Victory Royal line looks alright overall, though, with my lack of knowledge on the game, I don't know if these are just fancy skins or actual characters, maybe both? It's why there are reveals that I'll be skipping because I can't think of much to say other than "looks alright". Ripply looks cool reminds me a bit of Minion from Mega Mind, but I'm cautious about how well those translucent joints will hold up over time. It seems like a very risky figure to be starting with engineering-wise. Lynx looks a bit too much like robot Catwoman, though I hope the articulation is carried over into other lines. Scarlett, the one female G.I Joe I have so far, only has single joint elbows, and I've heard Marvel Legends fans have been clamouring for better articulation in female characters for a while now, so hopefully, it happens. Shadow Meowsel (Meowsle?), the details are lovely, but I do find it odd that they released the obvious repaint first for this new line, though I shouldn't be surprised based on what I've seen from other toylines. The shark seems to be just a fancy accessory pack. I'm guessing a Loot Lama will be on the way based on how the accessories store in the shark. Will I go in on this line? No. As I said, I don't play the game. I've got no interest in these characters. I've not seen enough about them to know about any personalities they may have (compared to Overwatch, another shooter I don't play, but the characters do interest me). I might do a review of some if I get a chance to borrow the figures from someone interested in the line, but for the time being, I wouldn't expect to see more Fortnite on either site. 

 

 

Transformers: Purely because they addressed it in the presentation, Hasbro does need to get a lot better about leaks when it comes to Transformers. The new Titan looks fantastic; it's nice to get a Transforming Ark, and while I have minor nitpicks about the gaps for the sake of transformation, they do look bad in vehicle mode. It does, however, look very impressive as a whole. The Ark might be the first Titan I own because of how good it looks overall. Rodimus Prime, when I first heard about it from leaks, I wasn't impressed, as I don't care about Rodimus' trailer being a trailer. I was hoping it was going to be integrated into the transformation. After seeing pictures of it, though, and seeing all that it can do, all that it comes with, I've warmed up to it more. Ignoring what I wanted it to be, this Rodimus does look to be a great looking Rodimus. Galvatron I was excited for the moment we heard it was coming, and after getting Scourge and Cyclonus in hand, Galvatron doesn't look as impressive based on the pictures, but not to the point of it looking bad. I'm still loving the look of it and can't wait to get it. Scorponok looks fantastic, probably one of the best looking Scorpion Transformers so far, though that's not too hard to do. Wing finger looks alright, not too big on the fossil mode primarily due to the dinosaur they chose, but the robot mode looks great. I'm going to try and make the fossil combiner when I get all three fossilizes. Not entirely sold on Tracks, I think he looks a bit too bulky in robot mode, but the car mode and flying car modes look great. I can't wait for Rhinox, Dracodon's a Vertibreak repaint; see my review for my thoughts on that. Not sure if it looks good in green, though. Soundwave I'm not too interested in mainly because I'm not collecting the core class G1 characters. The only one so far that interests me is Megatron because of the accessory. Astonishingly, he comes with a Lazerbeak cassette, and because of that, I might change my mind depending on how well he looks in tape recorder mode when next to bigger figures. Tricranius looks cool, and I love the fact that they're doing a blast effects pack at last. I'd love to see them do more blast effects in different colours, especially if weapons that are blast effects compatible are going to continue going forward. Shattered Glass Blur, 1/5 figures that are going to be Shattered Glass repaints. I wish we could see more of those figures, but Blur looks excellent. I'm hoping to get the Shattered Glass two-pack sometime this year, and this one will look great with Prime and Ratchet. The final thing revealed is an app and voice-controlled Optimus Prime. This has been floating around for years as what looked like a Robotics designer's personal project, now given a mass retail release. It looks cool, but not the likely over $1000 cool. Though it's a shame that Studio Series didn't get any love, and it was so Kingdom focused, the fact that this paragraph is as long as it is shows you that there was still a lot of info released that I'm excited for. There will be a Fan Friday in May that'll show more off, hopefully including Studio Series?

 

Power Rangers: A significant focus for this section of the presentation was on the media side of Power Rangers, game updates, a new comic, episodes of the shows being uploaded to Youtube, along with unknown collections that will be retail exclusives in August. I don't have much to say about those. For the Lightning Collection, they first showed off the remaining team members of the Mighty Morphin Metallic Power Rangers. Yellow, Blue, Black, and Red. They look good; the glitter effect looks OK, the weapons look alright and will look good with the already released Pink one. Finally, they showed off the Boom Studios Tyranosaurus Sentry, and again, it seems fine. It might be the cape, but it looks like it'll be awkward to pose in exciting ways and doesn't look as expressive as the other figures shown (well, the digital renders they offered). The weapon effects on all the figures look great, though, and I think those interest me the most out of all of the reveals in this section of the stream.

 

 

G.I. Joe: The focus for the Joes was the product reveals for the upcoming Snake Eyes movie (which we're still waiting on a trailer for). The kids' roleplay items look fine, though I get the feeling the sword will be a bit difficult to hold for kids, at least based on the video itself, for all I know they're the same size as Lightsaber hilts which will be fine. Out of all the roleplay items, the spring-loaded staff would have interested me the most as a kid, but I could see them causing issues for parents. Parents beware when it comes to those toy Ninja weapons. The kids' action figures look good as well, a Joe equivalent of lines like Transformers Cyberverse, looking closer to the Deluxe class for them. The weapon combination gimmick, along with the spring-loaded attack gimmick, looks fun without being intrusive to the figure (they're not going to be as poseable as the Classified series, but these don't look to be as invasive as gimmick focused Transformers). The figures look good; not a big fan of the Baroness and Ninja Tech Snake Eyes, though. However, some accessories like Storm Shadow's quiver and a dagger that Baroness comes with seem to give off the impression that they'll work well with the Classified line for those who can't find the Classified versions on shelves. The Character and Vehicle figures don't look great to me. The characters look good, but the bikes feel forced in, and I'm not sure how well the gimmick will work considering they're motorcycles. I love the look of the Classified versions of the movie characters. They're different enough from the regular Classified figures that they stand out while not looking so drastically different from the familiar 80's aesthetic to not clash with the current Classified figures, at least when compared to the Transformers modernized looks compared to their movie designs. A solid presentation overall, but it's hard to be excited for a movie where there's no trailer for it yet, especially a movie now coming out in July this year.

 

 

Marvel: Starting with Marvel Legends Retro Wave 3, Bullseye, Grey Hulk, Invisible Woman, Cyclops, Ant-Man and Vision. While they look good, not too into 3.75-inch figures, at least on their own (something that I hope to elaborate on in the future). Going into the 6-inch stuff, Quazar looks well done; I just don't have much to say about him. I love the look of Classic Ultron, with there being just enough mechanical detail to give him some texture without going too far away from the comics. Evolt Guardsman looks fine; nothing really to say about him as I've never heard of him before. Hologram Iron Man seems interesting, but as with Ripply in Fortnite, I question how durable the material will be due to the translucent body. I love the look of Stealth suit Iron Man, along with Iron Heart. They did bring attention to the fact that Riri will have double pinless elbows, so regarding my comment about Lynx, there's a good chance the articulation improvements carry on into other lines. Not sold on Darkstar, to be honest, at least when compared to the previous reveals of the Iron Man wave. All of the figures from Ultron to Darkstar will come with components to make Ursa Major, which looks very impressive, but I would probably be more impressed if I knew who Ursa Major was. Stand alone from those in the 90's Modular Armor, which looks great and a good representation of the 90's armour. I could see people who played (what I'm assuming to be) Marvel vs Capcom enjoying the look as well, potentially keeping them around as new fans. The Iron Man suits are tempting, along with Iron Heart and Ultron; the others aren't interesting to me personally. In terms of the MCU stuff, while they couldn't show Disney+ figures, they did show off Thor from the final battle in Endgame. The sculpt looks good, and I like the effects parts, but I'm not a fan of the translucent blue weapons. They don't look good without the effects parts, which is a shame for those that don't want to use them for displays. A new piece of Legends gear is the MCU Eye of Agamoto, complete with a glowing, Removeable Time Stone. For people who like collecting the MCU gear, they're going to love this, and I can easily see this working well as a cosplay prop. After going into some details on the Haslab Sentinel, it appears that the next project they're going to try and crowdfund is a Galactus, at least based on the teaser and a teaser for the second wave of Age of Apocolypse revealed a Sabertooth coming. It is a nice mix of reveals, maybe not so much if you prefer MCU figures, but still solid overall.

 

 

Star Wars: Up first for Star Wars is the Galactic Snacking Grogu, based on his hunger from Mandalorian Season 2. An electronic Grogu toy is about what you'd expect it to be; looks fine. I hope you're not sick of Baby Yoda merch. After that came the reveals for the Vintage Collection. Re releases/ remakes in the collection include Luke Skywalker in his Hoth outfit, Han Solo in his Endor trenchcoat, Admiral Ackbar, and the Royal Guard. They look good for 3.75-inch figures. A new subline in the Vintage collection themed around Star Wars game characters was revealed, with the first wave including Heavy Battle Droid from Battlefront 2 (they didn't say which one), Shadow Stormtrooper from The Force Unleashed (which looks nice to me but, once again, translucent body parts), Scout Trooper (which looks to be a regular Scout Trooper but with new harness and a stun baton), and Electro-staff Purge Trooper, both from Jedi Fallen Order. The four figures look great, but I find it odd that it's all army builders and no characters from the games in question. Going to the 6-inch Black Series figures, they revealed figures they teased back in January, including General Lando from Return of the Jedi, Aura Sang from the Prequels (most notably from The Clone Wars), Tech from The Bad Batch, Zero from The Mandalorian, and Koska Reeves from The Mandalorian. All of these are faithful to their representations in Star Wars, though I am surprised they've finished The Bad Batch and Bo Katan's team so quickly, especially when there are (apparently) other teams and squads missing characters. Black Series Role-Play (I didn't catch the actual name) reveals include Wedge's helmet (which is probably a repaint of Luke's helmet, so again, looks fine if you're collecting them). The final reveal for the section was a Rogue One X-Wing for the Vintage Collection, along with an Antok Merrik that will be bundled with it to pilot it. During the presentation, a fan vote started to bring a vintage collection figure back into production in 2022. You can find it on Hasbro Pulse's social media channels. Maybe it's the fact that this took me all of Saturday to write (and I still need to do the thoughts on the presentation, the opening and closing paragraphs), or it's the fact that I don't collect Star Wars toys. Still, nothing in this section of the presentation interested me. 

Final thoughts on it all? I like the fact that Hasbro does product reveals like this and their Fan First Fridays. I hope that even after things fully recover, they continue to do them as it helps keep the excitement going between press shows. But, there are still some bugs to work out. I hope that if they keep working on them, the web cameras from home/ office stop once they can get people back at work, give the presentation a more professional look, and avoid technical hiccups that have frequently appeared in these kinds of events. I also think they need to strike a better balance in terms of the amount revealed compared to the discussion on the reveal. Four and a half hours is a lot to get through. Stop Motion trailers might be a thing to consider to show off a figure, what they come with, how they move, something that the designers would discuss. However, that will depend on how much they can cut the production time down. The padding, such as trivia and fan opinions, is also a pace killer; I think that kind of stuff is best saved for a post-show stream that could go into more detail on the reveals. I hope this was good read for you, I'll have a review of something for next week.

G.I Joe Classified 06; Cobra Commander and Regal Cobra Commander: And now for some different forms of buckethead.

For every hero, there is a villain, or at least there should be. The 1980's G.I Joe reboot, A Real American Hero, wasn't originally going to have an offensive force to fight against. Originally, Hasbro wanted the Joes to fight other companies toylines like Star Wars. I can imagine the epic battles between the Joes and the evil forces of Lego Castle. When Marvel, who was working with Hasbro to develop a comic series to tell the toyline's story, told them "No", a random idea resulted in the creation of the Joes, now infamous villains. Cobra, "a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world"... it was the 80's, terrorism wasn't immediately associated with radicalized Muslims flying planes into buildings and bombing places in the general culture that's quick to label anything and everything in black and white. Well, now that I've probably pissed a lot of people off with that comment, let me quit when I'm behind and review that one time Starscream was the leader of an army and why it was probably for the best that he never gets to lead the Decepticons, Cobra Commander.

For this review, I'll be looking at two versions of the Commander. The general retail release Commander, which has a darker, more realistic colour palette, and the Hasbro Pulse exclusive Regal Cobra Commander, boasting a brighter cartoon and 80's toy accurate colour scheme. There is a third out there that was a San Diego Comic-Con exclusive before COVID happened. It became a Hasbro Pulse exclusive with more accessories and a different colour scheme, going for a mix of black, red and gold. Due to the fact that shipping is a problem, and I'd rather not spend triple digits on a $40 figure, we're not covering it in this review, ok? Ok.

 

I'll quickly touch on the articulation, as while it's similar to Duke's from back in February, both versions I have seem to suffer from different quality control issues. On the regular retail version, the hinge in the shoulders to help bring the arms closer to each other rarely wants to stay in any position other than getting the arms in closer, especially the left shoulder, though thankfully, the Epaulette does hide that. When using some of the accessories, you don't even notice it. The Regal variant doesn't have that issue in the shoulders, but the ab crunch ratchet is uncomfortably stiff and does not feel good to use, at least on my copy. If you ever wanted an example of how the QC is in the Classified line and how varied it can be, that should give you an idea when comparing two versions of the moulds. One minor note that may or may not be quality control, the rubber sashes and Epaulette are noticeably looser on the regular retail copy than the Regal version. However, I don't know which one should be correct in terms of application. 

The sculpting and paintwork on both figures give Cobra Commander a very ornate. It's fitting for a character that is so over the top in terms of personality (at least going off the 80's cartoon), and the Military General Dress Uniform fits this personality perfectly. The dark blue and black colours make up most of the colour on the figure on the regular retail release, with beautifully contrasted accents done in silver, gold, and dark red paint. I love how the snake motif is integrated into the sculpting without overpowering the look. It's on the strapping and Epaulette, the sheath for the sword, the black patches on the coat (not counting the gauntlets) and red striping on the pants. Enough for it to be noticeable, but grounded enough to have it still be a realistic-looking uniform. Regal Commander shares this aspect with the sculpting, but it's harder to notice on him due to the brighter colours. Everything that was dark blue on the regular version is now a more brilliant blue, in line with the 80's look. The black patches on the coat, the red striping, and the black gauntlets and boots have all been swapped out for dark blue. Anything that was silver (except for the visor) is now gold, giving him more of a presence due to how loud the colours are compared to the general retail version. The only complaint I have with the paint is that the gold doesn't look as durable or as well applied as the silver, but even the silver on the regular retail version has some issues when it came to the application, mainly the front of the left shoulder.

 

I love the head sculpts on both of them. There's enough detail to make it look visually interesting, without things being distracting, like many of the designs from Rise of Cobra. It's a shame that he doesn't come with an alternate head to look like the Hooded Cobra Commander in any version of the figure, but the accessories he does come with are good enough. While I wish he came with the sceptre as Snake Supreme does, both figures come with a handgun that's sculpted beautifully while still keeping the snake theme toned down. Due to both guns only being one colour, the snake detailing looks more like ornate detailing, which fits the figure as a whole. The same thing sadly can't be said for the sword. Both figures come with an elaborate dress sword that, while the blade looks solid and formidable if you dare try to put it into his right hand, something I haven't tried to do, the Cobra head for a sword hilt stands out badly against the rest of the figure's more toned down snake aesthetic. I wouldn't mind as much if he came with the sceptre, but as it is, it looks awkward. Unlike all the other figures released so far, Cobra Commander comes with four hands, two left hands and two right hands. For the left hand, you have a fist or an open hand that could be either a "resting comfortably hand", "resting on sword hand", or an "I'm going to rule the world!" acting hand. You have a trigger finger grip hand that will hold the gun and a pointing hand on the right. These hands sell the figure. He's surprisingly expressive purely because of the hands for a guy with a mirror for a face. It would have been nice for the figure to come with a version of each position for both hands. It would be excessive for a figure to be released with eight hands, but the possibility for photos and displays would be worth the CAD file mirroring required to pull it off. I hope to have some picture tests in a new photo set up on my twitter feed sometime during the week.

"Decepticons! Megatron has fallen! I, Cobra Commander, am your new leader!... Wait, wrong series, but you should make that red, white and blue jet with the beautiful voice your new leader!"

 

Like with Duke, Cobra Commander is a nice modernization of the original character. But unlike Duke, the sci-fi elements don't clash as hard against the design, partly because Cobra always had one foot in sci-fi and didn't need to get around the logic loophole of realistic, modern army people using space guns. While Duke can look a bit too generic as a general army person at times, this is unmistakeably the Commander. Both the regular and Regal versions have their unique charm, and both are worth picking up, depending on your preference.

Transformers War For Cybertron Kingdom Core Class K3; Vertebreak: Does she count as a Spooky Scary Skeleton?

 Ever since watching the Beast Wars cartoon, there has been something about the pilot episode that has confused me. Ignoring the "it's because of the toys" reason when the Darksyde is searching for compatible alternate modes for the Predacon crew. It finds Dinosaur fossils; why didn't the Dinosaur Predacons turn into fossilized dinosaurs? It was searching for biological alternate modes for the Predacons, and bones are biological material. Why did the computer create a muscle and scale mockup for the bones based on their placement before turning most Predacons onboard into Dinosaurs?

I bring this up because of one of the gimmicks for the War for Cybertron Trilogy. In all three toylines, Siege, Earthrise and Kingdom, specific figures have been designed to be broken apart and reassembled into different configurations, both for Transforming between their alternate and robot modes and the ability to turn into accessories for other figures (to mixed results). For Siege, it was the Weaponizers, Earthrise had the Modulators, and Kingdom has the Fossilizers. "Now you too can give your red and blue truck a giant bone sword!" Though today's subject doesn't get to break apart like her Deluxe sized wave companion Paleotrex, she does get to inherit the Fossilizer aesthetic, giving us a female Transformer that turns into a Dracorex fossil. Meet one of the newest Predacons, Vertebreak!

 
As mentioned above, Vertebreak turns into a Dracorex fossil, and one of the biggest compliments I can give her right off the bat is that the alt mode looks great. Except for the silver screws in the joints, it's pretty hard to tell from a distance that she transforms at all. Thanks to the bone sculpting effortlessly blending the sculpting gaps for the sake of transformation, this toy can easily be passed off as an ordinary dinosaur fossil toy. The only outlier in this is the ball sockets on the ankles, and it makes her look like she's wearing Dinosaur foot-shaped high heals. I appreciate how minimalistic the paint decoration is, keeping to the skeletal design by mixing the black and very dark brown plastic, giving it a simple look that doesn't feel basic. Articulation is fine for the most part. Some of the limbs, like the arms being moulded in, I can live with considering how small the components are. However, it would have been nice to have an actual mouth and not a bit of soft plastic moulded open. 

 

The transformation isn't anything spectacular for a Legends/ Core Class character. Remove the tail, flip out the arms, Dino head in the chest to reveal the robot head, then give her the tail as a... Bone sword? Bone whip? A Predacon version of the Sword of the Creator from Fire Emblem? The tail weapon is nothing to write home about, but it's at least a common use of beast kibble, and it even has well-disguised back storage. It's not as sturdy of a connection as Rattrap's is and will fall off if you knock it, but it will hold reasonably well. The robot mode itself is pretty nice, with some silver and red paint being revealed for the robot to add some extra colour to it. The ball joint articulation is back for everything but the knees, giving you everything other than a wrist and waist swivel. However, her most significant problem is that she's competing with Rattrap as a wave mate, so while she's nice, she feels underwhelming compared to Rattrap as she's far more basic by comparison. 

The core of Vertebreak's problems come back to that last line. "She's far more basic by comparison". There's nothing wrong with the toy itself. It's a nice cheap Transformer with a lot of play value thanks to the straightforward transformation and well-placed joints. But when put side by side with her wave companions, Rattrap and Optimus Prime, nothing stands out about her. She hasn't got the excellent engineering of Rattrap or the brand recognition of Optimus Prime. As a result, she looks like a low effort wave filler by comparison, which is a shame. Vertebreak might not be a spectacular toy, but she is still an enjoyable one and one I do recommend picking up. The original plan was to review Cobra Commander next, and regarding Toybox reviews, he will be the next one covered on the site. However, with all the buzz surrounding the Snyder Cut, I think it might be good to dust off the Main Site and review not only the movie itself but the streaming service I saw the film on, Binge.

Transformers War for Cybertron Kingdom Core Class K2; Rattrap: Still think we're all going to die?

I mean if this toy came out last year, there's a good chance I would have agreed with him.

With the, shall we say, waining popularity of the Battlemasters and Micromasters in Siege and Earthrise, along with the vocal demand to bring back the Legends size class, it's no surprise that Hasbro caved in to demands and did just that. Launching in Kingdom Wave 1, Hasbro released three Legends Class type toys under the new Core Class branding (because consistent naming schemes don't make sense in the eyes of Hasbro). For the next two weeks, I'll be looking at the two Core Class figures I was interested in out of the initial wave, Predacon Vertibreak, and this week's review of Maximal Rattrap.
 

I'll start with the rat model because it has a similar issue to the one I had with the two Spiders from last week. It looks great, but the articulation in the rat model is (while for good reasons) lacking when compared to other Transformers. He's about as articulated as most Generation 1 toys in alt mode, but the difference is that those are cars and trucks, while this is a rat. None of the legs moves outside of a transformation joint for the back legs, the tail doesn't move, and the head can only move when going into robot mode. I'm more forgiving of it for its size and the fact that the transformation is well done; however, if you're looking for something as agile as the Generations one from 2014, then you're going to be disappointed. Another note of comparison between it and the Generations one (from what I can tell from video reviews) is the lack of integrated weapon storage, which was one of the big selling points of Beast Wars. Like Optimus Primal's Swords, Rattrap's gun has nowhere to go in Beast Mode other than pegging onto the side of the leg. It's another minor issue that I'm willing to look past due to the size, though it would have helped fill in the hole under the stomach, which is very noticeable thanks to the robot thighs peeking out of the side, and the visible hands underneath the start of the tail. For some positives, though, the sculpting work on the rat model is excellent. I love the sculpted fur on it, and the paint applications are minimalistic but help it stand out (it would be nice if the tail was painted like the hands and feet are, but it's not a deal-breaker). It's a shame that, for a figure based on a character that came from a toyline all about detailed animal modes, Rattrap's rat mode feels forced in, it is the weakest of the three modes, but a part of that comes from how good the other modes are. 

After an entertaining but straightforward transformation, the robot mode is by far the toy's standout mode. While he's not flawless, the good far outweighs the bad. I love how elegant he is to move around, only missing a waist swivel and a pair of wrist swivels, but for a figure of this size, I don't mind him missing things, especially when everything else is so well jointed. As with the original Rattrap toy, Ball joints are the primary source of articulation, with every joint other than a swivel for the neck being achievable with a ball joint. This makes moving him around very easy; however, due to the joints relying on plastic friction, this may change over time as the joints become weaker. The only issues I have with the joints are the lack of a locking point for the shoulder assemblies to stay. It's not a deal-breaker, more like a minor inconvenience. Once again, paint is used sparingly, with the only new paint applications revealed in this mode being the robot mode face (or at least, more clearly seen as he does have a visible robot head in Rat mode) and silver on the lower arms. I love the fact that he has little Maximal logos on his arms. One of my most significant issues from a few years ago during Titans Return and Power of the Primes was stickers being used for faction logos for the Voyager toys and anything larger and more expensive to purchase. The fact that they could get Maximal symbols, something they likely didn't have on hand because of how uncommon Maximal toys are in relation to Autobots and Decepticons (at least in the last five years), this miniature is impressive to me. One advantage Core Class has over the older Legends class figures, at least the ones during the Prime Wars trilogy, is that at the cost of them getting smaller (to better scale with the bigger figures), they're coming with accessories again. Rattrap comes with a nicely sculpted blaster (that is blast effects compatible). While its implementation in Beast Mode isn't ideal considering the original Beast Wars toyline, the robot mode implementation is great thanks to the ability to store it on his back seamlessly.  

 

As someone who doesn't have the Generations Rattrap, would I have liked this to be a mini version of that toy? Yes, but the sacrifices made for the sake of the size class still work well overall. Though I am jumping the gun a little in terms of timing, this is the best Core Class figure in Wave 1 of Kingdom and a new standard for Transformers at this scale. I'm not someone who is against smaller Transformers being in the Deluxe scale for the sake of engineering, so I hope that they don't limit these kinds of characters to just this size once Kingdom is over. I'm not entirely convinced Warpath and Huffer weren't intended for Earthrise yet, so it. If you find him, he's worth picking up, though if you're not a stickler for size, the Generations one might be better. I'll see you next week for the Predacons one, Vertibreak.

Marvel Legends Into the Spider-verse Gwen Stacey and Maximum Venom Ghost-Spider: At least this can last a while.

 "Will this mean I'll start collecting Marvel Legends and Black Series? No, I'm not made of money!"-Mediaholics Toybox's review of G.I. Joe Classified Duke. My curiosity will be the death of me, I swear.

Well, with my curiosity fueled by the return of, and my introduction to, G.I. Joe toys with the Classified line, along with seeing a wave of Into the Spiderverse figures on shelves, it was not a good combination for someone who is curious by nature, and still waiting for the Events Industry to recover from COVID-19 with time to kill. Though my knowledge of the comics isn't excellent when compared to other fans, some things do pique my interest, which is why this is a dual Ghost Spider review. Thanks to the Build-A-Fig accessories, these will likely go on for a while as semi-regular reviews, if for nothing else, then not having random torsos lying around my collection. Shall we try and see why there's love for Marvel Legends? Oh, and encase you're curious, yes, that quote does extend to Star Wars, but that's for another day. It can wait.

"Alright people, let's start this from the beginning one last time." To start things off with answering some questions as to who these two are and why I'm reviewing both of them at the same time when they look nothing alike, that requires a bit of unpacking. In a basic summary, Gwen Stacey was Peter Parker's first love in the comics; The Night Gwen Stacey Died being regarded as one of the most important comics in Spider-Man history. Many, many years later, a comic event was being written themed around Spiderman known as Spider-Verse, a multiverse adventure pairing many different versions of Spider-Man together. A mix of pre-established comic spiders like Miles Morales from the Ultimate Marvel Universe, spiders based on media representations like the then ongoing Ultimate Spider-man version of the character, along with versions of the webhead that flip the concept on its head all being brought together for a story. "What if Gwen Stacey got bitten instead?" was one of these "flip the idea on it's head" ideas. This event is where the Spider-Woman that the fanbase nicknamed "Spider-Gwen" came from, and when she was dimension-hopping, she got herself a special Venom Symbiote. She would eventually adopt the alias of "Ghost-Spider" when she was brought into the central comic universe. Symbiote part excluded, her role in the Spider-Verse and popularity from that series was one of the driving reasons why Spider Gwen was put into the Sony Animated Movie from 2018, Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. Anything I could say about that version of her can be summed up as "go watch Into the Spiderverse, it's a great movie." My apologies to the more well-known fans about this likely butchering of the character's history, there is a lot to it, and I know people don't like to read a lot, so I had to keep this brief.

I'll start this review with the Build-A-Fig pieces; so that if I do more reviews of Marvel Legends, I don't need to go into this process again. With the majority of Marvel Legends figures (that I've at least seen), a themed wave of figures tends to come with a piece of a larger figure that you can put together if you collect all the figures in that wave. Both figures come with the torso of their respective figures, Gwen Stacey (the name I'll be using when referring to the Into the Spider-verse character) comes with the torso of Stilt-Man (who wasn't in the movie, but that is best saved for a dedicated review). Ghost-spider comes with the torso and weapons of Venompool, who, as far as I can tell, is Deadpool with the Venom Symbiote. It is a solid idea for getting larger figures into the market, though annoying for those who don't like leaving random pieces of figures lying around (like me). When writing this, Stilt-Man is complete, and Venompool has a set of legs to go with his torso. If these reviews interest people, I'll keep making them, and they'll eventually get reviews once I've covered the characters lugging around their body parts. In the meantime, let's look at Gwen. 

To get one positive out of the way first, with the significant exception being the Maskless Gwen face, this can be quickly passed off as the comics Ghost-Spider, the traditional look, not the symbiote costume, due to how faithful the Into the Spiderverse design was to the comics. Those looking for a Gwen from the comics and can't afford the late tax (the first one I could find on eBay was $100+ shipping, and an Amazon listing had her almost $190). Completely accurate? No, but within the ballpark. If you're hoping I compare this to the Edge of Spider-verse version, you'll be disappointed as I don't have that one, and I'm not paying those prices. Maybe if I can get one second-hand, as I do enjoy the character in all the media appearances that I've seen, but that might not be for a while. As for the Spider-verse version that I do own, when she's wearing her mask and hood, she looks like she's jumped off the screen. However, to compare it to something like modern Transformers Masterpiece figures, there is extra detail here that, while likely coming from other characters, adds enough detail to help it feel alive. To jump ahead a bit, I think the two figures here share moulding for their lower chest, but that's me basing it that the abdominal muscle-sculpting looks to be the same. Even in basic poses, the sculpted muscle tone gives the figure an air of power to her, like this is someone that can, and will, beat you up without breaking a sweat. 

While as good of a figure as it is, there are parts about it that I'm not a fan of, thanks to a mix of things like unknown expectations going in, accessories I wish she came with and accessories that I'm not fond of the result. I've been focusing on the masked look because I'm not a fan of her unmasked face. Don't get me wrong, it's sculpted well, and the detail with things like the eyes is impressive, but she has a dead eye look about her with the mask off, which is kind of unsettling. The face needed a better expression on it, something like the smug smile from the forest where she debuts as Ghost-Spider/ Spider-Woman would have been a lot better at giving some more life to the face. It's a shame that it's the face the figure is wearing in the box. She comes with other accessories: a pair of web-shooter hands to swap out with the fists she has by default and a Spider-Ham figure that can't move (outside of a ball joint for the head) but is well sculpted and works well as an accessory. It would have been nice if she had come with gripping web hands, encase someone wanted to use some white string as makeshift webs, but a part of that goes into a flaw I have with both figures, so I'll save that for after I talk about the symbiote suit.

One of my significant issues with the traditional Spider-Man Venom suit is that for as nice of a look as it has, it's somewhat surprising how well red and blue characters being painted black works; it is just a black version of the Spiderman suit. No extra details, no bells and whistles, just a black suit, likely due to its introduction and the cause of the suit coming after the fact. I bring this up because Ghost-Spider's suit fits the Symbiote suits' potential now that people accept that the symbiotes are more than a set of black threads. I love some of the details like the jacket with the spiked shoulders, and the hood being designed like a symbiote mouth. Honestly I think the hood is a far better way at executing the symbiote mouth when compared to other costumes such as Miles'. The "tongue" I'm a bit hit and miss on. While it looks fantastic in comic art, I don't think it's translated well to plastic, even though it is nicely sculpted. I think it has something to do with the length of it. I think it's a bit too long if you have it just dangling, but you can wrap it around her leg and have her hold the end of it in one of her hands. I also like that it's more of a dark blue and not black, which helps her stand out a bit more when put next to other symbiote suits. Unlike Gwen, you don't get extra accessories like alternate hands or a head without the hood on for her, but I don't have an issue with that as it's not needed, and the clawed fingers are the only hands she needs. 

Articulation on both of them is about the same. However, Ghost Spider's hood and jacket limit the head movement, and the joint in her chest doesn't seem to want to let her arch her back. The overall articulation is fine for what it is, but it is limiting when you consider how limber she and other spider characters are in media. While I've been able to replicate poster shots of Gwen's Into the Spiderverse design, neither can pull off things like a wall crawl or a "spider landing"; fingers of one hand on the ground, the other arm in the air, the body as low to the ground as possible). The problem with articulation is that it is hard to balance the figure's movement with its sculpt, especially when there's nowhere to hide the hinges, such as on figure-hugging, single-piece super-suits. Would I have liked these two to be more agile? Yes, but I don't know if that would have been worth sacrificing to the sculpt needed to pull it off. At the very least, though, was it too much to ask for a forward ab crunch on these two?

From an outsider looking in, one of the biggest problems is that it is a very, very deep rabbit hole due to the massive catalogue of heroes, villains, side characters, and alternate costumes for all of them. When you combine that with a business model that encourages you to get figures, you don't want to complete larger figures. From there, enabling you to start pairing them up with other characters thanks to the web of connections that are the many different Marvel Universes makes getting into the line as a new collector very daunting. With two of the ones I took the plunge with, what I got were solid but a little underwhelming. Great representations, to be sure, but I can't help but think things could have gone further when it comes to stuff like articulation. I plan to do more reviews of Marvel Legends in the future, for both the Spiderverse wave and the Venom wave of figures. Past that, though, is a bit more up in the air. I might not know how deep this rabbit hole goes, but I know it goes deep, and many figures have hefty late taxes on them. See you next week for a review of Maximal #2.
 
Also, I should say this now encase anyone wants to ask; I've got no plans to review now brand new wave of X-Men figures, which only just launched at the time of writing. I recognize some by name, none by design.